Help Me Choose: Hard Drive

The hard drive is the primary storage unit of the computer. The operating system, applications, files and data are stored on the hard drive. If this Dell Tablet will be used for digital video editing or audio file storage, or for working with storage intense applications, you should consider buying a faster hard drive with more capacity.

Replacing a hard drive, either as an upgrade or because of a failure, can be challenging. The best way to avoid this inconvenience is to choose a hard drive that meets your needs well into the future by considering these four factors:

1. Capacity requirements. More gigabytes (GB) mean more capacity. Presentations, videos, spreadsheets and photos take up much more space than word processing documents and emails and will require a hard drive with more capacity.

2. The importance of the data. Sensitive data such as customer information, financial records and medical history can be better protected by a full disk encryption hard drive (FDE).

3. Performance. Hard drive performance is influenced by the speed of the drive measured in revolutions per minute (rpm) and the use of flash memory to accelerate data access. Higher rpm means higher performance. Flash memory can also enhance drive performance by allowing data access without waiting for the drive to spin up. This can provide advantages in boot time as well as application launches. New innovations such as hybrid hard drives, Intel® Turbo memory and solid-state hard drives all rely on flash memory to enhance performance. Solid-state drives have no moving parts, so their speed is not measured in rpm.

4. Durability. Most hard drives have moving parts, making them vulnerable to certain impacts, vibrations and other movement that can lead to a crashed hard drive. New innovations such as solid state drives help protect against impacts and can reduce the risk of failure. If you are usually on the go, work in the field or often run through airports, you should consider a solid-state drive for added durability.